Chapter 2 - The Severed Pendant
The unmistakable scent of scorched meat drifted into the grand dining room just as Gabriel Vale raised his crystal flute for a toast. The roast had burned not because of my negligence, but because Celeste had deliberately cranked the oven dial to its maximum setting the moment my back was turned. I had rushed to salvage the dinner, but the damage was already done.
Through the pantry glass, I caught Celeste’s fleeting, triumphant grin just before Adrian stormed into the kitchen, his face mottled with furious embarrassment.
"You’ve humiliated me in front of the entire regional board!" he snarled, grabbing my wrist so hard his fingers bruised my skin.
"It was an accident with the oven temperature," I replied evenly, wincing against the pain. "It can be replaced."
"You can't be replaced because you're fundamentally incompetent!" he roared, dragging me by the arm straight out into the center of the crowded dining room, cutting off Gabriel Vale's speech in mid-sentence. Dozens of high-powered executives turned in stunned silence as Adrian shoved me toward the center of the floor. "Apologize to everyone right now!"
"For what, Adrian?" I asked, raising my chin, refusing to cower beneath the collective gaze of thirty wealthy strangers.
His hand lashed out across my face with a sickening crack.
The blow was so violent it sent me stumbling sideways, splitting my lip and sending a sharp spray of crimson across the pristine white marble floor. The heavy silver necklace I always wore beneath my collar—an old, worn heirloom shaped like a crescent moon split by a tiny, jagged sapphire—snapped from its clasp. The pendant spun rapidly across the glossy floor like a miniature silver top, finally coming to a dead stop directly beneath the polished leather shoe of Gabriel Vale.
Adrian pointed a trembling, venomous finger at me, shouting over the dead silence of the room. "You’re useless! Absolutely worthless!"
Gabriel slowly bent down. His long, elegant fingers closed around the small silver pendant. As he lifted it into the light, his posture went entirely rigid. The formidable billionaire, known across the global tech sector for his ice-cold composure during hostile takeovers, looked as though he had just seen a ghost.
"Where did you get this?" Gabriel whispered, his voice trembling in a way that commanded the entire room's rapt attention.
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I wiped the blood from my split lip with the back of my hand, meeting his stunned gaze. "It was wrapped in my baby blanket when I was left at Saint Anne’s Children’s Home twenty-two years ago."
Gabriel’s face drained of every drop of color, his skin turning a ghastly, translucent grey. He dropped his wineglass, letting it shatter on the marble floor. "My daughter... my little girl wore this exact pendant the night she vanished from her nursery twenty years ago."
